Sex! Outrage! The Internet! Doug Wilson, Rachel Held Evans, and The Gospel Coalition

Perhaps I'm just getting old. I did turn 40 last week. But I must admit, my first read of Jared Wilson's now infamous post, "The Polluted Waters of 50 Shades of Grey, Etc.," didn't outrage me. It didn't even offend me. It did, however, confuse and creep me out.

On his personal blog at The Gospel Coalition's website, Jared ran the cold-shower-of-an excerpt from Doug Wilson's 13-year-old book, Fidelity: What It Means to Be A One-Woman Man, where Doug writes, "true authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity."

[Note: Due to the overzealous reproductive nature of the Wilsons in this world, for the purposes of this post, CT will break from its usual style of using last names in citation and instead will be using first names to distinguish between Jared Wilson and Doug Wilson, who, as a commenter pointed out, are unrelated.]

It all culminated with this line from Doug: "However we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party." Combine sex, gender debates, 50 Shades of Grey, and you have a recipe for an Internet explosion.

Despite Doug and sex and pleasure parties, I couldn't generate personal outrage. My ick-tank was full, and I was done with the whole thing. Of course, unless you've been hiding in an e-cave, you know that the Internet was far from done.

A day or so later, we read Rachel Held Evans' take on Jared's post. I realized I had missed so many of the fine points she raised, and thought, Ah, to be young and outraged again!

Indeed, Doug's sexual conquest language is troubling, especially considering what Paul says. "The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband," Paul writes. "In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife." And yet Doug's image of sex could be read as men are monster-esque and women helpless fools. Sex is a realm of God's kingdom deserving redemption.

A key issue raised by Held Evans and others includes attention given the countless women who have suffered sexual abuse or been raped in their churches, in their families, in their marriages and had it "justified" through a twisted theology of sex. Doug's words are not only confusing but potentially damaging. But so is the fallout from all of this. TGC has updated the top of the original post to reflect the following warning:
"[TRIGGER WARNING]: The content of this post (and resulting comments) contains language and imagery that may be sensitive or harmful to victims of sexual abuse or rape."